To keep warming in check, some experts have proposed brightening clouds over the ocean to reflect more of the sun’s light.
To keep warming in check, some experts have proposed brightening clouds over the ocean to reflect more of the sun’s light. A new study finds that doing this in the north Pacific could, in the future, actually worsen heat in Europe.
The churn of ocean water sends sea salt spraying into the air, naturally brightening big, puffy ocean clouds. As water condenses around airborne salt particles, it reflects light from the sun. Some scientists have called for amplifying this process to reflect more light and slow warming. In California, researchers have sprayed small amounts of sea salt into the air over San Francisco Bay to study the effect.
Farther south, at the University of California, San Diego, researchers recently modeled the impact of cloud brightening if deployed on a massive scale, with ships scattering salt into the air across huge swaths of the north Pacific every spring, summer, and fall for 30 years.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Photo Credit: WolfBlur via Pixabay
